1. Field of the Invention
This invention generally relates to work order management systems and, more particularly, to processes and systems for correlating new work orders with existing work orders to improve efficiencies.
2. Description of the Related Art
Most residential and business telephone customers are connected to telephone systems by copper cables and wires. These copper cables are the familiar one or more telephone lines running throughout nearly every home in the United States. Because copper cable and wire connects each home, and many businesses, to the telephone system, the Public Switched Telephone Network is composed of billions of copper cables and wires. Each of these copper cables must be maintained to provide superior telephone service to the customer.
Yet maintaining these copper cables and wires is an extraordinary task. The Public Switched Telephone Network, with its millions of copper cables and wires, may receive hundreds of maintenance calls per day. These maintenance calls, in turn, may result in hundreds of maintenance work orders. A single cable fault, for example, may server telephone service to hundreds of customers. Construction crews can inadvertently severe telephone service to hundreds of customers. Storms, floods, and other natural disasters can interrupt telephone service and require thousands of man-hours of restoration. Even common, everyday exposure to ozone, summer heat, winter cold, and water can deteriorate and degrade copper cables and wires. These hundreds of daily maintenance calls, and the resultant work orders, must be efficiently managed to prevent maintenance costs from eroding profits.
Correlation is one persistent problem with efficient work order management. Managers often have no method of correlating work orders to efficiently utilize technician efforts, training, and equipment. A technician, for example, may be assigned work orders at opposite ends of a telephone system local loop, so the technician inefficiently spends more time traveling between assignments than resolving customer complaints. Once the technician arrives at the service site, the technician may discover that specialized equipment or training is required. The technician's efforts are wasted, and a more-appropriate technician must be assigned. If several customers report a common failure, such as a downed telephone cable, multiple technicians may inefficiently converge at the same location to repair the same cable. A lack of correlation when managing work orders fosters inefficiencies and needlessly increase costs.
There is, accordingly, a need in the art for work order management systems that correlate work orders, that efficiently utilize technician capabilities and equipment, that provide faster repair service to customers, and that reduce the costs of maintaining operations.